Sad, isn't it, that the next generation, George, Jr., apparently hasn't learned from the mistakes of his father. Yet, why do I get the feeling that President George W. Bush is heading towards selling Israel out and is on the verge of the greatest double-cross since the Allied nations sold the Sudetenland to Adolph Hitler?



I was delighted with the conduct of our President and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair during our Iraq crisis. However, I get the feeling that they are in the process of making Israel a sacrificial lamb in their efforts to give themselves a public relations counterbalance to the war against Iraq. Folks, I don't feel reassured. Israel is on the chopping block to pay for Bush and Blair's political history and the future benevolence of the Arab nations to like us again. I hope that, unlike his father, President Bush doesn't underestimate the power of the Christian Coalition or the American Congress.



Are we supposed to wait with bated breath while Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who is the figurehead puppet of Yasser Arafat, announces a "breakthrough" in a renewed Middle East 'peace' process? This looks very much like the insane proposition that then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak made and Arafat walked away from. Meanwhile, while an anemic media breathlessly reports on the wonderful advances being made in that area, has anyone remembered that this is the same Abu Mazen who authored a book denying the Holocaust, and who reportedly financed the Fatah operation that led to the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics? How fast we forget. And, he's been Yasser Arafat's senior deputy since the 1960s and was instrumental in forming the Fatah group.



Or, maybe we should wait for the members of the United Nations to show how they have arranged "a just and fair peace in the middle east"? Unfortunately, according to them, the previous deals with the Israelis are going to be called off. Remember? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Bush promise before anything would be done, the Palestinians would cease their terror attacks, stop the hate-filled writing in their newspapers, and remove the books that are used throughout the region to train their children to hate and kill their Jewish neighbors? Oh yes, and have a workable democracy?



The Israelis are probably feeling like Charlie Brown when Lucy holds the football.



Does anyone besides me see something wrong with the Arabs giving up nothing but the promise not to kill more Jews that week? Israel, as usual, has an imposed list of concessions a mile long, while all the Arabs have to do is promise to 'reform' themselves. Fool me again? No, I think not.



Is Bush going back to the unworkable premise of Oslo to appease the European Union? Gawd, you'd think that we would have learned that the United Nations is not a body of men that can be trusted when it comes to Israel. Hey, this group isn't a body of anything other than self-serving entities. This is the same group of men who gave Libya the leadership of the committee on Human Rights, and also let Iraq head the Global Disarmament Committee. The French are coming along, after the fact. Along with the Germans and Russians, however, they have done everything to support the enemy and sabotage our policies. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. For all practical purposes, to our credit, we are no longer in the United Nations. We should stay out.



Now, I believe, is the time to review our current policies and plans for the future.

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Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at [email protected].